There's no better walking testament to the life-saving capabilities of CPR and automated external defibrillators (AED) than pro hockey player Brett MacLean and the three bystanders who saved his life last summer.
On Saturday, the Heart and Stroke Foundation honoured the three rescuers and the two paramedics who helped MacLean when he collapsed on the ice in July during a hockey scrimmage in Owen Sound. MacLean had gone into full cardiac arrest.
Jay Forslund, an Owen Sound firefighter who was off duty watching his sons play in the scrimmage, vividly remembers every detail of the evening the 23-year-old MacLean nearly died. He had just watched his son Jamie pass the puck to MacLean. Seconds later, MacLean collapsed to the ice.
Forslund said he knew right away something was terribly wrong. Seconds later he called 9-1-1, retrieved the AED at the new rec centre, then ran to the ice.
“(Goalie) Curtis Sanford grabbed me. It's the fastest I've ever gone on ice in Birkenstocks,” said Forslund.
In his job, Forslund has performed CPR and used AEDs. But this was different, he said.
“It was almost more scary with a young man” than it is with elderly people, he said, because “you don't expect it with a young athlete.”
He was also worried about the emotional well-being of his two sons, who were watching over his shoulder as he and hockey players Jason Silverthorn and Jason Gallagher helped revive MacLean.
“It's a phenomenal feeling, it really is,” Forslund said of the successful outcome. He'd watched MacLean play as a youngster and followed his career from the Ontario Hockey League to the National Hockey League. “It meant a lot that it gave him a second chance.”
Forslund, who was given a framed certificate by the Heart and Stroke Foundation Saturday, said he spreads the word about CPR and AEDs whenever he can.
“The AED is nothing to be afraid of is my message to anybody who asks,” he said. “It walks you through everything you do, you just have to have the nerve to grab it.”
Saturday's event was also a free certified training session in CPR and in the use of AEDs for anyone from the public. More than 150 people took part.
Andrea O'Donoughue brought her 12-year-old son Liam, 10-year-old daughter Erin, and their friend Dylan Dorey for the training. All three are scouts, and learning CPR, O'Donoughue said, was in keeping with the scouts motto of being prepared.
“You never know when you're going to need to help someone,” she said.
It's exactly the attitude the Heart and Stroke Foundation is playing up in its aggressive campaign to get more people trained in the life-saving skills.
“We want more people to have the skill, and once they have the skill, we want them to use the skill,” said Andrew Lotto, the Heart and Stroke's manager of resuscitation programs.
He said the survival rate of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests is only 5% in Ontario. The idea, he said, is to get more people comfortable with using CPR and AEDs, and “to realize they can't hurt somebody who’s in cardiac arrest. That person is dead or dying, and the important thing is, if you take no action, the odds of surviving are zero.”
Silverthorn, who plays pro hockey in England, was not able to attend Saturday's event. Neither were Gallagher and MacLean. Grey County EMS paramedics Sherry Foster and Paul Sollors were also awarded.
Silverthorn's father Eldon accepted the certificate on his son's behalf. He said he and his wife Betty-Jean were very proud of their son for his actions and felt it was important to be there to accept the award on his behalf.
There are more than 100 AEDs in public places across Grey County, and more than 3,000 in Ontario.